War Machine (The Combat-K Series) by Andy Remic Page B

the Long Dead Planets. It was the perfect place for a high security prison, and allowed for a purely nominal staff. The place was almost self-governing.
    Each moon housed a colony for criminals slotted neatly into categories rated by severity of crime and judged on a points basis. One moon contained low-risk criminals, such as thieves and traffic offenders on repeat charges. Another was designated for certain species of criminal life-form or AI, yet another for hardcore criminal elements: tax evaders, murderers, sexual terrorists. The fifth moon had been unofficially named Hardcore by its inhabitants . This moon housed the worst of the worst: multiple murderers, the criminally insane, soft-target terrorists, combat AIs guilty of slaughtering large groups of humans, burned-out tek-soldiers caught AWOL and drunk with stolen nukes; that sort of thing.
    Each moon was considered a self-contained unit protected by air and anti-spacecraft (ASPAC) defences. Each moon was divided into compounds ruled over by small squads of Merc Police and Justice SIMs working four-weekly shift patterns—just in case of mass breakout attempts or riot—but, on the whole, prisoners were basically dumped with a few possessions and allowed to get on with it. There were no cells. There was no order... just the Law of the Jungle.
    If a prisoner wanted to murder another prisoner? Fine. After all, criminals usually operated within their own frameworks anyway. Better to let them police themselves and form self-governing criminal hierarchies (so the principle went), but in an enclosed and ultimately controlled environment where they could be of little harm to what were considered normal civilized cultures and communities. They were still confined, and, if the worst came to the worst, easily exterminated on a mass scale. This was called Global Scrubbing and usually involved a contemporary version of napalm.
    Pippa, having been charged with eight counts of murder, found herself on Hardcore— the fifth of the Grey Moons—the most violent, lawless and radically non-policed prison available for the imprisoned criminal element. After sentencing, Pippa was jet-dropped to a desolate outcropping of mountain rock, left crouching in nothing more than canvas trousers, a jumper, a pair of old boots, and holding a kitbag containing a knife, some smokes and basic camping gear. Staring up in hatred as the jet-craft fired a glittering path back into low-slung orbit, her future life expectancy had not looked entirely promising, especially for one so apparently naïve and pretty, with her dark bobbed hair, perfect skin, voluptuous and athletic physique. Only those grey eyes set her apart; they spoke of a soul carrying murder and mayhem.
    Gathering her kit, Pippa headed off the mountain plateau and gazed down into the gloom of a distant valley as the wind screeched around her, buffeting her. Firelight shimmered from a large scatter of buildings assembled from local grey stone. Pippa descended with trepidation, shivering as the wind bit through thin clothing.
    This was it. This place was home... forlife, and death: no parole, no community service, no bit of decorating with tea and scones for Mangy Betty; no spot of gardening for Old Uncle Roger; no cleaning condoms from the local canal. Five Grey Moons was a permanent lifestyle choice; a lifestyle change . Where life was life, and death came far too easy.
    Pippa was ambushed on her way down a narrow path by three men, bulky and haggard, with gaunt scarred faces and the air of the desperate. They could see her pretty skin, lusted after pale flesh. They knew she was a Fresh Drop...
    Easy meat.
    It took five seconds of intensity before the hardcore murderers were dead, skewered and gutted like boneless fish on the blade of Pippa’s folding knife. She wiped blood from the blade, searched the attackers’ holed clothing, pocketed their weapons and copper money, and in an even, cool, calculating voice, said, “So, it’s going to be